


Quiet

by nerigby96



Category: Martin and Lewis
Genre: Almost Kiss, Angst, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Touching, Hugs, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Partnership, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Smoking, Understanding, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 20:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20935943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerigby96/pseuds/nerigby96
Summary: Backstage. The dressing room.





	Quiet

Sometimes, Jerry needs to be quiet. He can’t explain it. When he’s up, he’s up; he’ll shout and scream and jump around, go crazy with scissors or glasses of water, and Dean will indulge him, join him, or simply watch him (just in case). Sometimes, though, he needs to be quiet. He remembers a train pulling into a station, and how suddenly he couldn’t speak, didn’t _want_ to speak. He clammed up, and Dean took over press duties for the afternoon. He never apologised for that, but Jerry is sure Dean didn’t mind.

The final show comes to a close, and they run offstage, drenched in sweat. Dean looks at Jerry, who is on the verge of shutting down. Slowly, calmly, they make for the dressing room. They don’t talk. They don’t bother turning on the light. They just shut the door and lock it. Jerry falls on to the couch, lights a cigarette. Dean sits beside him, and apparently doesn’t feel Jerry tense up as he stretches out, his head in Jerry’s lap, his feet propped up on the other end. As though it is the most normal thing in the world, Jerry holds the cigarette to Dean’s lips. He smokes, a long drag, and then billows out into the room. Jerry puffs a few times, then stubs it.

After a minute, Dean dozes.

If someone else were here, maybe Dick wanting to discuss some arrangement or other, Jerry might risk leaning down to kiss his partner. He would coo and preen, exclaim how cute his bubbe looked asleep. Dean would wake, feign annoyance, and Dick would laugh indulgently. But they are alone. And Jerry is shaking. His heart has gone past pounding, positively vibrates against his ribcage, and he leans back, eyes closed, trying to steady himself. He wants to stroke Dean’s hair, his forehead, but his hands stutter and tremble in the dark. He moves them awkwardly, can find no decent place to rest them, so joins them together, gripping, squeezing.

He bows his head. He’s thinking, thinking about Dean, thinking about kissing him onstage, thinking about riding on his shoulders in the pool, thinking about the beach and how Dean let him use his mouth and teeth and tongue on his neck. _Just teasing_, he planned to say if Dean pushed him away. _Don’t be mad, bubbe_. He thinks about leaving Dean notes on dressing room mirrors and bedside tables, signing them _The Jew_, and how Dean adopted that for him: _Jew_ and _Jer_ and _Germ_ and _kid_. He thinks, most of all, about shooting earlier that year, goofing off and kibitzing on set, Taurog’s hand on Dean’s shoulder to lead him to his mark, and Jerry approaching, leaning in, kissing Dean’s mouth and feeling Dean kiss back.

A camera flashed. People laughed; they always do. They didn’t see Jerry die and come to life again before their very eyes.

Something touches his cheek. He gasps, pulls back, but then hears Dean’s soft “_Shhhh_” in the dark, and sinks into his partner’s palm. He feels gentle fingers wipe away tears he can’t remember shedding, and then Dean moves. Jerry freezes. _I’m sorry_, he thinks, frantic, impossibly afraid that Dean has somehow read his mind. But Dean is on his knees on the couch in the dark and reaching out and pulling Jerry to his chest. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong. Jerry doesn’t know that he would have the words to answer that. So he slumps against his partner and weeps into his shirt. He twines his arms around Dean’s waist, enveloped in the heady aroma of sweat mingled deliciously, maddeningly, intoxicatingly with Woodhue. He shudders and moans. Dean strokes his back, soothing.

Then, gently, Dean rocks him back and forth, and softly croons into Jerry’s ear. He doesn’t know the song, but it is sweet and slow. Italian. A part of him considers asking Dean to sing it in the act, to maybe cut a record of it; but a bigger part, a louder, more selfish part that Jerry is always acutely aware of when it comes to his partner, wouldn’t dream of asking. He wants this one to himself.

The song ends all too quickly. He looks up. The dressing room is cast in pale silver by the moon, so clean and perfect it makes Dean look like a photograph. He moves his hands, one to Dean’s shoulder, one to the back of his head, hauling himself close, as though he might slip away, sink beneath waves and drown. Now they are both on their knees, and Dean holds him tight tight tight and does not move away as Jerry closes the distance. He hugs Dean close, their cheeks pressed together. He tries to speak, but words fail. How easy it would be, he thinks, to push just a little, to send Dean falling softly down on to the couch, to lie on top of him and hold him closer still. But he doesn’t. He holds Dean’s face. He draws back to look at him in the moonlight. Dean is smiling. Jerry closes his eyes. Their foreheads touch. Dean's hand comes to his partner's cheek, one large thumb stroking, sending fire and ice and electricity shooting through every inch of Jerry’s body.

“You’re all right,” Dean whispers.

Jerry moves Dean’s head back a little, tilts his own. How best to do this? Dean’s thumb still strokes and strokes, erasing the last of Jerry’s control. Not for the first time – and certainly not for the last – he thinks about all those hands have done. He thinks about those fists curled tight, swung to split skin, crack teeth, bust noses. He's seen it, watched Dean grab and shove and hit in their early days when some putz at a club would say something he shouldn't. Those hands, built to bear steel, bred to break bones, seem to Jerry above all born to bring comfort.

He straightens, still on his knees but higher now than Dean. He leans in close, a thousand voices, jokes and excuses on the tip of his tongue, ready to jump out of his mouth if Dean pulls back.

But he doesn’t.

_Oh_, he thinks. _Oh, help_.

His upper lip quivers, brushed by the breath from Dean's nostrils.

There is a knock at the door.

“Hey, Jerry, Dino!”

It’s Dick.

_Never has that name been more apt_, Jerry thinks, collapsing a little on to Dean.

“Yeah, just a minute,” Dean calls; Jerry can’t get his words out just yet. He rests his head on Dean’s shoulder and laughs almost silently. He is trembling. Dean’s hands aren’t on him anymore. Jerry pulls back, enough to look Dean full in the face. Then he snaps his teeth a hair’s breadth from his nose, as though that was the plan all along. _Kiss you? Ha-ha, fooled you, Dean Martin._ Dean laughs and pushes Jerry away, but gently, and then goes to the door, snapping the light switch as he passes.

Jerry takes a moment to close his eyes and exhale. As the door opens, he’s gone from the couch and to the window, sliding it up a little to get some fresh air. There is, of course, a straggling crowd down below. A kid looks up and sees him, gasps and points. Jerry smiles weakly and flaps his hand in acknowledgement. The other heads in the crowd swivel up in perfect unison. It’s almost funny. Jerry sits, leans his head back, framed by the window. His pulse slows to a reasonable pace, but still he cannot speak. In the dressing room, Dick and Dean are talking, glancing at Jerry perched on the windowsill. Outside, the crowd is cheering.


End file.
